Those organizations that successfully create new knowledge as the basis for new products and services, usually associated with large urban agglomerations. See Henry and Pinch (2000) Geoforum 31, 2, 191 on the knowledge community of Motor Sport Valley. Today, knowledge is considered among the most important resources, and an essential driving force of economic growth; see Y. Aoyoma, J. T. Murphy, and S. Hanson (2011), section 6.1. The knowledge-based economy (KBE) generates information rather than goods and services. M. Castells (1996) sees the production of information and of knowledge-intensive goods and services as characteristics of post-industrial societies; others see it as a product of globalization (see J. Dunning, ed. (2004) and Schamp et al. (2004) Eur. Plan. Studs 12, 50). Larner (2007) TIBG 32, 3 reports on the use of long-standing informal networks and opportunistic links with expatriate experts in the KBE of New Zealand.

Not everyone sees the rise of the KBE as beneficial. Von Osten in P. Spillmann, ed. (2004) points out that ‘controlled access to knowledge goods and information…creates new global differences in power, new forms of resistance and subversive practices’, and Chi-ang Lin (2006, Eco. Econ. 60, 1) is troubled by the persistent emphasis on knowledge and economic growth at the expense of poverty reduction and environmental conservation. See Hudson (1999) Eur. Urb. & Reg. Studs 6, 1.